1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image capturing lens and an imaging apparatus, and more particularly to an image capturing lens which has a high image focusing capability and is bright and compact, for use with a digital camera and a video camera, and an imaging apparatus employing such an image capturing lens.
2. Description of the Related Art
With the increasing popularity of game machines for home use in recent years, digital cameras have become widely used as an image input device for capturing figure images into computers. There have been demands for digital cameras which are capable of capturing higher-resolution images, are smaller in size, have improved camera specifications including larger aperture ratios, wider angle settings, and smaller distortions, and are lower in cost.
Heretofore, there have been known retrofocus image capturing lenses as wide-angle, large-aperture image capturing lenses including a front lens group having a negative refractive power and a rear lens group having a positive refractive power.
For example, compact large-aperture image capturing lenses are disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-open No. 2000-275514 and Japanese Patent Laid-open No. 2000-193884.